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Second class of Javier Rochwarger's Workshops at Esquina Tango, Austin

(Background: I've had classes/lessons with Javier Rochwarger for the last 3 years. He makes his annual visit to Esquina Tango here in Austin every Spring. You can
read about two of my previous experiences here: Spring, 2011 and here: Summer, 2012. )

Group Classes

One of the reasons Javier is so
popular is that everything he teaches in group classes is taught in the
context of the social dance. The movements and the technique are intended for dancing on a populated floor, and respecting the
line of dance. He talks about listening to the structure of the music and understanding movement in terms of the music's grammar. His classes have always been filled
with beautiful and immediately applicable skills on the milonga floor.
Javier's focus is on the quality of the embrace and of the dancer's
movement - not so much on sequences, though he does use them. When he uses a sequence, it's most often
to demonstrate the point of technique he is trying to make.
(Connecting turns, making use of crosses in certain places in the music,
disassociation
etc.)

He is funny, and as his website says "warmly intense", but he is
not
timid with correction. He does not take himself too seriously, but he
does take the material he teachers very seriously. He knows he has very little time so he is direct with his instructions and with his feedback.

This year I
took more group classes than last year - I managed 3 out of 5 group
classes and 2 shared private lessons with different partners. Javier's
group classes are about the only group classes I seek out anymore,
mostly because he really tries to give followers "equal time" when it
comes to technique instruction. (In most group classes, I feel like a
prop or worse, a crash test dummy, present only to give the leaders
someone to practice their new moves on. I understand the importance of
that, truly - but I paid for the class too. ) Javier really makes an effort to work with everyone at some point in the class and that's no easy task, especially in a large class.

At the beginning of every workshop (and private lesson), he asks the dancers to dance at least once, usually a couple of times, to get a feel for where, collectively, the students are in their dance. If necessary, he adjusts what he had planned to teach to better help the students as a group. So I can tell you he focused on embrace, collecting (and when not to collect), pauses, disassociation and turns in the classes I was in - but that may not be what he focuses on in other classes.

Private (shared) Lessons

I've written before that many dancers, myself included, rarely get truly surprising feedback in private lessons at this point. I usually have an idea of what is going wrong, I just don't know how to fix it. Every once in a while I get a, 'When did I start doing that???' moment, but thankfully not too often.

The homework list this year is, sadly (see previous post), much like last year's list.

(In no particular order.)

1. Straighten my back and stop sagging/tilting at the middle. I have
less "middle" now, but I shouldn't be resting it on my partner if he's
not inviting that in the embrace.

2. While we're on the subject of waiting to be invited - wait to be invited into the leader's embrace rather than putting
myself where I want to be. There is always some negotiation of the
embrace but latching onto the leader, where I have not been invited to be, can feel
presumptuous and limiting to the dance.

3. Continue to work on balance
issues. That part was relatively new given my current muscle issues,
but I got a very clear demonstration of how it is limiting the options of
my partners.

4. Get control of my weight changes and axis.This is one
of those things that, because I only recently understood how to begin to
affect that change, it is taking a very long time for me to work on.
It's a case of different metaphors/explanations work for different
people and it took a long time to find an explanation that worked for
me.

5.Disassociation needs to be more clear and controlled.
This one really is about my own bad habits. Here in Austin, for several reasons,
most leaders open the embrace to do ochos and turns so I don't really
have to disassociate as much as I do when I dance in other cities. Some
of that is
because it is so often taught (in open embrace) that way in Austin - but I didn't realize
until I
was in the group classes this weekend how few dancers (followers and
leaders) can
manage turns and ochos smoothly and comfortably in close embrace when directed to do so. Note: It's not that I object to doing turns and ochos in open embrace - I
don't mind at all as a style issue. I do mind a bit when I'm being pushed and pulled through turns because my partner has not been taught to rotate his torso separately from his (or her) hips.

6. Stop the auto-collecting and wait for the leader to
actually lead me to collect. Collecting too soon, or without being led
to, limits certain options for the leader. It was particularly
noticeable (as an obstacle) when dancing vals.

7. While we're at it - stop auto anything. Some things
you do as a default when you're first learning tango - but after awhile,
damned few things in tango should be considered "automatic".

8. Continue work on hip laxity which slows down my
ability to truly land my side steps. I land my foot, but my hip is still
in motion or pulled slightly over the foot. This is an ongoing PT and
training issue that my teacher was able to refine in terms of the dance.

9.
Slow down. We disagreed at first on this topic as he believed I was
anticipating the lead, but after actually testing my balance, he
admitted what I had initially told him was true - I'm falling into the
next step, not getting ahead. This is the most deeply frustrating part
of my tango training right now.

A couple of months ago, my balance was
more solid than it had been in my entire adult life. Starting High Intensity
Interval Training in the manner I did has developed my muscle tone
(which is great - my body fat percentage
dropped from over 32 to 28% in less than 2 months) but in very
unbalanced ways (which is less great.) I didn't combine my HIIT training with
the complementary strength training that would have prevented this
problem and now I'm having to retrain and do more corrective exercises
to address that. (More on that in a different post.) It gets better
every week, but I'm just not where I want to be yet.

10. Get better control of my hips/balance/abdominal
muscles to reduce unintentional movements in the dance, like breaking at
the waist, dropping my hip, rocking to the side etc.

UPDATE

More notes from my second private lesson.

1. In terms of posture and embrace, when I thought I was
disassociating, I wasn't really using contrabody motion (at least not
consistently), but simply breaking at the waist and dropping my hip
and/or shoulder. I had to feel the "correct" way several times (by
leading Javier) to feel what I needed to do with my own body. Through
turns in particular, even in the ocho cortado which is very minimal
pivot, I was falling slightly away from my partner.

2. Again, as above, don't be so quick to complete the "move" - slow down.

3. Match the energy my partner gives me.

4. Keep working on the balance issues - especially using the
disassociation exercises. I made more progress on my balance this
weekend than I have in the past two weeks simply using the suggestions
Javier gave me. I wish I could explain them here - but even when Javier
explained them to me verbally, I struggled to understand. Once he
showed me, as a leader and as a follower, within the embrace - I got it.

My only regret was that, once again, I forgot to record either the lesson, or a wrap up dance to review later. :-/ My brain was too full.

(I am not using the name of the teacher in this post, even
though my follow-up posts will identify him, because it
doesn't really matter who the teacher is for this subject - and I don't
want to get distracted in defending or attacking his style of
dancing/teaching etc.)

The continuing adventures of a slow learner . . .

It is deeply disheartening to have my yearly private lesson with a
teacher I've studied with the last 3 years, and be corrected for the
same mistakes I've been making for the same . three . years.

The first year, he was very understanding. I was still pretty new - only
dancing a year. The next year he pushed a little harder and I made
excuses. I said I would practice - I would work on it. This year was
intensely frustrating. These were things I should have resolved by now -
fundamental issues with my embrace, control of my axis, how I change
weight. The foundation of tango.

Instead of becoming defensive in the lesson (and wasting my partner's time as well as our teacher's), I detached a little bit. I looked at my
dance from his perspective. I tried to imagine how frustrating it must
be for him. He comes every year, tells his students, usually many of the
same students, the same advice year after year after year. Very little
seems to change. Our embraces, generally speaking, are weak. Our control
of our axes, even weaker. Our walks are rocky, uneven, falling from one
step into the next. That's not true for everyone of course - but for
far too many to be ignored.

In my (shared) lesson, I tried, probably out of habit, to make an excuse again - this isn't
the way I usually dance. I'm not used to it. I usually dance
"buttons-to-buttons", milonguero, full on close embrace. This teacher
dances in close embrace but using slightly more of the "v" than I am
used to. Even as I made my familiar excuse - I knew it was
feeble. It's my job as a follower to adapt - to give what I get in the
embrace if I agree to dance. Being able to do that is what makes certain
followers so very popular - their ability to adapt easily, seamlessly
to any partner they choose to dance with.

After the words came out of my mouth, I immediately regretted saying
them. I let the excuse just fall to the floor. He didn't answer it, he
just moved on. In fact the feedback/correction he gave me through out
most of the lesson was wordless. We both knew instantly when I was
slipping up, so there was no need to point out much of anything
verbally. He would make corrections to my posture with his embrace and
we just kept working. I knew what I needed to do - I just needed to
replace the old habits with the new ones. When I needed explanation, he
gave it and he gave it very clearly.

Still, my monkey brain was wild at work over-thinking and coming
up with more and more excuses. Yes, I've had surgery. Yes, I've had
health challenges to my muscles, my posture and my balance - but
fundamentally, I just didn't give those issues in my dance attention.
They aren't things that are focused on by teachers, or even many of the
leaders here in Austin, so I got lazy. With few exceptions (and there
are exceptions if you look for them) this is a figures-centric town. I
worked on the things that were easier. Now it's clear that I cannot
progress my dance until these issues are addressed. Other visiting
teachers, and teachers I have sought out in other cities, have had consistently the same criticisms for me.

I've had this mentality of, well I do this, this and this pretty
well, I shouldn't have to worry too much about these other things -
especially if no one else is giving me negative feedback about it. The
problem really is that if I know something is broken and needs work, I
shouldn't need someone else to remind me that I need to fix it. It's not
going away on it's own. Worse, it is impacting my ability to progress
my dance. My lack of technique is impairing my ability to express the
music and connect to my partners.

A visiting teacher can't fix your bad habits or mine - there isn't
time and that's really not his job. It is his or her job to point out
what needs work and get you going in the right direction to overcoming
the obstacles. Ultimately it's my job to seek out local teachers,
partners and any resources I can find to address the what needs work on
my own. I usually have every intention of doing that. But then the
weeks go by and I get busy doing other things, as we all do, and I don't
make it a priority. Is it any surprise then that a year later, standing
in front of my teacher, I am getting the same feedback I did the year
before?

Now it's finally sinking in. Having my own group practica, as well
as booking my solo time in the studio, has removed any excuses I might
have had left. No one is going to do this work for me and it's long
overdue.

For my next post, more for my own recollection than anything else,
this year's work list. Maybe by next year I can at least garner some
new and interesting criticism.

I had a 'talking to' no less than 3 times weekend before last - all by
dancers I deeply respect and admire. They were each very helpful,
well-reasoned arguments against what I had "taken to doing lately with a
particular leader."

When it happened, I knew I'd hear about it. Mouths turned down at
the corners, eyebrows knitted and furrowed, a couple of quiet comments were made. On
the milonga floor, my leader was breaking the rules, and I was not only
letting him, but worse, I was also grinning madly in response.

It was a threefold milonga scandal:

1. My leader and I
changed the embrace from a traditional abrazo, to what would look like an odd
practice embrace - his arms over my shoulders and my arms around his
ribcage (he's quite a bit taller than I am). It looked like I'd given
him a big hug and we just started moving. I'll get to the reason for
this in a moment - for now, just know that in my communities, as in most tango communities, it's considered inappropriate
to be using a practice embrace at a milonga. Practice is for
classes and practicas, not social dancing venues. Which leads me to the
second point.

2. We were technically practicing. We were problem-solving - not just
dancing socially. For that I do take complete responsibility. The reason
was, quite simply, I was leaning on my partner and likely making him uncomfortable. Rather
than stop the dance and sit me down, he changed the embrace so that we
could both be comfortable and I could regain a sense of my axis. (One of
the odd side effects of my training has been a sort of
uneven redistribution of muscle mass. This has compromised my balance
while proprioceptors figure out where all of my bits are again and retrain the weaker muscles. This particular leader has been helping me regain my coordination.)

3. We also changed roles (very briefly - I doubt it was longer than a
single phrase of the music.) The strange and beautiful thing about the
embrace we were using was that 'lead' and 'follow' became very blurry, fluid things. Within
that embrace I had almost as much input as my leader did on the musical
expression in our dance. I commented on it between songs and because I
didn't mind what we were doing, we continued in that embrace through
next song.

The crowd that night was very, very light and there was loads of
room. To my knowledge, I can't imagine how we could have interfered with
anyone else - except by the way that we looked. While I danced with
this particular leader, I had a whole new understanding of communication in the
embrace that I hadn't experienced before. We have danced since then, and
periodically take that embrace again.

I will confess, I am a fairly crappy leader. I can manage walking,
but only just - and it's not pretty. But for the first time I was able
to actually try leading for a few steps in a relaxed, fairly
contained, way. As I said - I loved it.

Normally all that would have caused was some raised eyebrows
and a couple of comments. But the next thing that happened demonstrated
exactly why dancers should resist the temptation to "practice" and/or "teach" on the
dance floor. I'm told that another leader imitated what we were doing. We set the
example and so it became, for at least that other couple, acceptable for
them too. That was the sticking point in the conversations I had later.
And I admit, especially given what happened, it's a valid point.
Practicing has no place in the milonga for exactly that reason. Now that I've been appropriately chastised, this leader and I
practice in that manner only in practica.

My question is, where do you draw the line? When a couple must make modifications to the embrace for mutual comfort - at what point does it become the business of other couples?